Project focuses on brave Ukrainians - 6th March 2024

Highlighting the stories of Ukrainian women is a new and original photography project. The women found shelter in the UK following the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24th February 2022.

Created by Katia Duncan, a Ukrainian who's lived in the UK for three decades, and Vlada Stoliarova, whose grandmother was Ukrainian, the project's entitled 'Nezlamna', meaning 'unbreakable'.

Katia Duncan: "And one of the questions that we've asked the women is, what, what, what is your story of being "nezlamna", of being this unbreakable woman. And they say, I don't feel like that. I feel like I break down every single day. And then I build myself back up."

Nezlamna features 18 women but their personal experiences represent thousands of others who were forced to flee the conflict. Most did so for the sake of their children, such as Yulia Zabrodska.

Yulia Zabrodska: "We, Ukrainian woman meet with challenges and I think all of us we have a sense of guilt that we left our country. And these projects show that we are strong, we're fighting, and we try to settle in foreign country and protect our children."

The women were photographed by Stoliarova. They're shown holding flowers to symbolise fragile beauty but also strength in the toughest of conditions.

Vlada Stoliarova: "I think it's very important to show that these refugees, that these women, that they're real. They used to have their lives in Ukraine, they full of love and full of just problems and the usual life that we have. But one day, it changed."

Nezlamna records the women's heartbreaking decisions to escape from Ukraine. It also deals with the struggles they face as single parents abroad, far from their relatives, while living in fear of the terrifying events back home. Although plenty of the women are highly educated professionals, it's common for them to find their qualifications aren't transferable, or their opportunities are limited by their language skills.

The project's acted as a kind of therapy for the women involved, but also for those who see their own stories reflected in the words and faces of the group.

Katia Duncan: "They lived through the experience, but also it has been therapeutic to other Ukrainians who, who saw themselves in these stories, so Ukrainians who read and relived and they felt that 'I'm not alone. I'm not alone in feeling like this.'"